Letters to the Editor - January 24, 2013

What kind of civilization is it that does not encourage sharing one’s wealth? Is it truly civilized to hoard wealth while others suffer and even die for lack of basic necessities?

I saw a bumper sticker the other day which said, “This is America. We don’t redistribute wealth. You earn it.” But this type of philosophy views wealth as separate from God and from the common good of us all.

If anyone earns money then it is God’s money one earns, not one’s own. And we are supposed to be good stewards of God’s money, which means we are spiritually, morally, and ethically obliged to share with those who are without.

The type of thinking which says, in effect, “I earned it, I worked for it, it’s all mine to do with however I please, and I don’t have to share with anyone,” is selfish and irresponsible in the sight of a loving God, I believe. We can do better than business as usual.

Alex J. Boros

Rochester

To the Editor:

It was both a surprise and honor that a niece in Tyler, Texas would request that I provide a presentation on Japan, from Dover, to her middle school World Geography Class. The request was timely and quite relevant since I was drafting this fitting response to Mr. Tom Seiler’s Community Commentary, “NRA is Right” (1/5/13 Foster’s): A response to my commentary regarding the Japanese perspective on our gun culture.

While talking to the Texas school children about Japanese culture and language, etc., I could see no point in contrasting the murder, rape and robbery rates in modern Japan versus those of the U.S. and the prevalence of gun violence in the latter. It would have only created an undue NRA-like fear, paranoia and hysteria in the children. However, I did stress that Japan’s large population, nearly half that of the U.S., is squeezed into a country far smaller than the state of Texas. I also emphasized that despite extreme population density: Japan is as free and prosperous as we are, as safe a country as one could imagine, and in the words of Mr. Seiler, the “politest of societies.”

As previously stated, I do personally support what appears to be the original intent of the 2nd Amendment to include the right to bear appropriate arms to protect one’s home, hunt and target shoot. I am no Constitutional scholar, but logic and reason tell me that only a severely strained interpretation of the 2nd Amendment could afford ordinary citizens the unrestricted right to bear the types of weapons and magazines used by gunmen at Newtown and other mass murders. Entrance into the U.S. military or a local, state or federal police agency should be the only option for those desiring to bear the said expeditiously destructive arms and ammo clips!

It has been over six years since I last had to mandatorily re-qualify on a firearm and I have no doubt that Mr. Seiler is a far better shot than me. However, he was ridiculously off target with his illogical conclusion that the “NRA is right” based on his nonsensical referencing of events and atrocities that took place during the Feudal, Pre-War and World War II eras of Japan. Yet, it served Mr. Seiler very well in omitting references to our own checkered past and present to validate his untenable position. Additionally, there is a good reason Mr. Seiler had to settle for such limited and old testimony of murder and gun violence in modern Japan. That is because events such as these are rare occurrences. When they do happen, unlike the 900 gun-related deaths that have occurred in America since Sandy Hook alone, they capture the attention and outrage of the national news media and entire population.

Mr. Seiler may find it quite curious that the current Japanese Constitution, drafted in 1947 with the assistance of General Douglas MacArthur’s staff, makes zero provisions for ordinary citizens to bear arms, yet, regardless, Japanese society manages to remain extremely “polite.”

Wayne H. Merritt

Dover

To the Editor:

In the February/March issue of the National Wildlife Magazine, there is an article about “Life on the Edge” by Steven Kazbuski.

In 2007 he had to travel in a motorboat hundreds of miles up and down the Arctic coast to find a polar bear to photograph on the outer reaches of Camden Bay off the coast of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge: the only place polar bears den in the U.S.

Oil companies want to drill this summer in the Camden Bay area! Every citizen in our country should stand up and forbid any drilling anywhere in the Arctic Ocean. Please write, call, or e-mail your senators and representatives in Washington to absolutely forbid any drilling in the Arctic. Loss of sea ice due to climate change is forcing bears to swim across huge expanses of open water — many drown!

In 2011, a collared female swam 426 miles in nine days with her young cub, losing 22 percent of her body weight in search for ice. The cub died!

Continued loss of ice from a warming climate and potential oil development in Arctic waters and along the coast could (and would) be disastrous for polar bears. The National Wildlife Federation has published several reports on climate change. To find out how you can help, go to www.org/global warming.

Patricia Newhall

Barrington

To the Editor:

Steve Hartford in his impassioned letter of last week (Jan. 17) against guns makes a few interestingly incorrect and misleading statements. If I could adjust these maybe we might have a more common field of discussion.

He mentions that he has owned both an M1 rifle and a Matchlock Aquebus but he is against all manner of assault rifles. Both the M1 and the Aquebus are assault rifles and were state of the art when used for that purpose. Unlike these assault weapons previously owned by Mr. Hartford the AR 15 and similar guns currently labeled assault weapons by the Press are not assault rifles. Today’s true assault rifle similar in appearance but totally different in function has a switch on it to change it from a single shot per pull of the trigger as the AR 15 to a three shot per pull of the trigger. The public cannot purchase these assault rifles.

Secondly Mr. Hartford questions why anyone would want a weapon for home defense. In a poll just released on Friday, Jan. 18 by Rasmussen, 65 percent of the populations sees Gun Rights as a protection against Tyranny.

Finally, he manages to bring together in a single sentence a statistic that there are 1,200 hate and militia groups in the country. That could lend one to believe that these two distinctly separate groups are one and the same. Surely he does not believe that all hate groups are militias or all militias are hate groups. How do know that only 20 hate groups exist and the rest are militia not dedicated to hate.

It is letters like Mr. Hartford’s that further divide the country and then the left wonders why we can’t all get together?